Research and Planning
The best centres encouraged an equal measure of research and planning and advised candidates to see this as an ongoing process, representing the journey of the project. In some cases, there was an imbalance, with lots of research and little planning, or vice versa.
In the planning, most of the centres that had undertaken the video brief produced storyboards, and scripts together with other materials. There was good evidence of candidates reflecting on the process of the production in their blogs.
Research and planning was predominantly presented in blogs but the quality of these varied greatly. The best work was able to exploit the form properly: lots of embedded video/audio and annotated images, making the use of ICT integral to the presentation, rather than using images as part of an illustrated essay. The best work showed a real sense of progression from both the preliminary task and the research and planning through to the finished production.
Some centres gave identical marks to all group members and did not acknowledge the work that individuals had contributed to their groups.
Blogs were very varied, ranging from 206 posts to just one. Expectations are that candidates will keep an ongoing record of their progress and should not see this as something to be collated and uploaded at the last minute. In some cases, everything appeared to have been produced after production, at the start of May. Group blogs need to ensure that individual contributions are made clear. For level 4 research and planning, substantial evidence is expected.
Generally research into opening titles was weak, and for the magazine task research into contents pages was particularly poor or not enough attention was paid to the conventions. Candidates need to understand that research is not a ‘bolt-on’ but a fundamental element of their project.
Candidates did particularly well when they did audience research at every stage and utilised the results. Unfortunately some centres ensured that candidates did audience research but did not use the result to inform their own final productions. There was some excellent evidence of audience research utilising a range of methods and reflecting upon findings, particularly using video interviews. However, in some instances research was merely a series of questionnaires and graphs with minimal discussion of potential impact. As in previous years, paper-based research often comprised piles of questionnaires, which are very difficult to credit in any way and thus should be avoided. Only a copy of the blank questionnaire and a summary of the questionnaire results needs to be submitted – not each individual questionnaire.
Research is often still quite limited to one magazine, one film, one website or one radio show – more variety is clearly needed. Such research does, however, need to be relevant. Often there was voluminous analysis of texts which bore no relation to the eventual production, so that it was difficult to see what value it had for the project. Overall, there often seems little application of research findings in the final product. Print candidates tended to focus too much on generic magazines and a broad range of music magazines. It would be helpful if candidates focused on their chosen genre in order to aid their understanding of the specific conventions and what audiences associated with this sub genre.
In many cases, there was still too much reliance on essay-style work. Where candidates made use of free online technology to analyse existing products, this was often far more illuminating for their work.
Some centres are still relying on PowerPoint for research and planning. It is clear that as a summative tool, it is difficult to adapt PowerPoint for such formative work. Likewise, on the whole, paper based work does not maximize achievement in this area.
Film had some excellent use of test shots and location scouting across samples, including one group who did an excellent foley sound experiment with melons and chicken thighs!
The main issue in research and planning was inconsistency in centres ensuring each candidate offered a ‘sense of journey’ through the project. While some candidates did this well, many blogs contained little information on the post-production stage, usually petering out after listing details of actors, props and locations. References to improving skills in the use of software in both the film and print options were often omitted. Although this is partially addressed in one of the evaluation questions, there was often little reference to difficulties encountered in editing and changes made following feedback.
For Print work, too often there was little evidence of photo shoots and evidence of the selection of the images. Font choice seems to let a lot of candidates down so perhaps greater research into the use of these would help. It was rare to see much drafting which is disappointing.
Some centres ‘taught’ or set class tasks for all research into similar products, when one genre was being developed. This lead to some very detailed and high level research, but also to a sense that not all candidates were really engaged with what they were writing.
There has been an increasing problem of candidates lifting research from the online blogs of earlier submissions. This occurred particularly with the print products. Centres are encouraged to get candidates to analyse contemporary products, perhaps uploading photos of current editions to analyse, rather than Google examples which have previously been recycled across many candidate blogs.
Again for print, there was a lack of research into different types of page furniture - slugs, boxouts, captions, pull out quotes and so forth. Representational issues were often not dealt with in a comprehensive fashion. Many candidates did not discuss their photos or composition of shots in a way that shows the creation of meaning or encoding or even what effect they were meant to have on an audience.
Some of the best research and planning seen included a film opening analysis with every bit of terminology highlighted, remaking an old student project and trying to improve it and undertaking a full equipment audit examining strengths and weakness of each item. In one centre, there were several rough cuts of each group’s film openings embedded on the blogs, each showing peer feedback and the group’s responses. This was then possible to use as evidence for the audience question in the evaluation, as well as enhancing their final productions. Such good practice is applauded.
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